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| Willys Dragster |
I’m conscious
there haven’t been too many posts on here about my own artwork for a while. Although work continues, progress has been
slow and I’ve been feeling a bit bogged down and uninspired generally, not just
in terms of my art, for a few weeks now. The school Summer holidays are here now, bringing the luxury of unbroken, usable time, but I’ve decided to
shake things up by deliberately doing some non, (or only tangentially)
art-related stuff with my Summer alongside the obvious attempts to get on with the
painting.
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| 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air, Gasser Dragster |
I wasted a lot of
last year’s holiday really, then felt frustrated afterwards, so this year my
intention is to avoid getting too intense about it all again by leavening the
mix of my activities generally. Whilst
individual pieces can always cause dissatisfaction, I’m not too unhappy with the general thrust of my work, so the theory is that, if I’m feeling a little more
stimulated and mentally refreshed overall, the painting will start to inspire
me a bit more too. Thinking about it, it may not even be
the root problem at all.
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| The Finish Line |
Thus, I found
myself at Santa Pod Raceway in Northamptonshire to watch some Drag Racing the
other day, - something that’s well outside my comfort zone of customary
activities, and all the more enjoyable for that very reason. So why am I telling you about it? I guess, because it just reveals that,
however deliberately outside the gallery or ‘studio’ I may put myself, I always
end up experiencing most things through the filter of sensory stimuli, and
relishing the essential strangeness and excitement of a new situation as an
abstract mélange of sights, sounds, smells, and related sensations. Essentially, that’s where being an artist
really starts for me, and I love the fact that I can see pretty much anything
in those terms, whatever category of activity or scale of spectacle it may
represent.
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| Funny Car Dragster Supercharger |
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| Willys Dragster Supercharger |
Anyway, enough philosophy. Regular readers will have noticed that,
whilst hardly a petrol head, (just the opposite in many respects), I have a
vestigial interest in slightly unusual vehicles, inherited from my late father’s
love of all things mechanical, and vintage vehicles in particular. This inevitably rubbed off on me, and often
being drawn to the alternative or extreme, my particular adolescent enthusiasm
was for hot rods and dragsters. My
interest centred far more on the aesthetics of it all than on the nuts and
bolts, and the bizarre stylistic conventions of that scene allowed my
imagination full range. All this
coincided with the 1970’s, - a period when it seemed perfectly natural to build
a car that resembled a cartoon as much as possible, (it’s kitsch on wheels,
essentially). ‘Whacky Races’, Hot Wheels toys, Revel model kits and ‘Custom Car’ magazine were very much
part of the zeitgeist for me at an impressionable age.
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| 1932 Ford Tudor Sedan With Period Trailer. |
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| 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air |
As another birthday
approaches, and I move deeper into my fifties, I’ve started to list things that
I’ve meant to do but just never got round to.
I think of it more as a ‘walking stick list’ than a ‘bucket list’, but
either way it’s just a reminder to myself to avoid excessive routine and to keep
enjoying new experiences while they’re still achievable. Going to the drag racing, for old time’s sake
if nothing else, was an easily realised item, and I enjoyed every minute. The event in question was Santa Pod’s annual ‘Dragstalgia’ weekend, when older
vehicles on the scene come together to recapture something of the 70’s golden
age, (not just for me then, it seems). When
I realised that the venue was only just over an hour’s drive away, it seemed
too good an opportunity to miss. The
fact that several of the drivers piloting their potential death traps down the
strip were apparently of pensionable age helped to put my list into context too. You can pay for a ride in a two-seater
dragster at Santa Pod, - I wonder…?
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| Slingshot Dragster Reversing On To Start Line |
For those unfamiliar
with the sport, Dragster Racing involves accelerating ludicrously over-powered
cars in a straight line, traditionally for a quarter-mile, in as short a time
as possible. Whilst two hopefully well-matched
cars race alongside each other, the real competition is against the clock, with
vehicles in a particular class returning to the strip repeatedly on an
elimination basis, until the fastest is decided upon. Competition classes relate to differing
technical specs and the fuel used, (Methanol and Nitro Methane generally
yielding higher performance than straightforward Gasoline).
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| Slingshot Dragster Reversing On To Start Line |
The cars vary
from the narrow, elongated and purely functional ‘slingshot’ or ‘rail’ forms,
through bizarre, distorted mutations of something vaguely recognisable as a
traditional car, to those not too far removed from regular production vehicles,
(often termed ‘Door Slammers’). There’s
an appreciation of the retro and the incongruous, and flamboyant paint jobs,
featuring flames, stripes and lurid signwriting, are de rigeur. Rear wheels are massive, whilst front wheels can
be minimal, (handling’s not really the issue here). The preferred power source is a massively
over-tuned American V8 engine, with short, open exhausts, and possibly, a huge
supercharger with gaping air intake, mounted on top. Ideally, the reimagined engine should be exposed,
or too large for any bodywork to enclose, resulting in a very public display of
‘mines bigger than yours’ machismo.
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| Competition Altered Dragster, All The Way From Germany |
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| Funny Car Dragster |
If this all
sounds pretty juvenile, I’d say yes, - gloriously so. There’s a kind of cheerful numbscullery about
the attempt to squeeze almost unimaginable amounts of power from relatively
traditional technology, to the point where steering the thing in a straight
line for a few seconds is a major achievement.
American automotive engineering is traditionally about ironmongery and
sheer muscle as much as sophistication or anything distracting, like turning
corners. Drag racing is, I guess, the
epitome of that.
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| 1960s Slingshot Dragster Engine |
Reason has very
little to do with it and spectacle is all.
The deafening racket and seismic impact of an unsilenced, high-revving
V8 must be experienced to be believed, and flaming exhausts and massive clouds
of smoke are routine. The wheel spinning
‘burnouts’ undertaken to soften tires for improved traction are an important
part of the ritual and acquire an added dimension when performed in
deliberately ignited puddles of petrol! There
can be no justification for any of this on environmental grounds, of course,
but the carbon footprint of a season’s racing in the name of a little
entertaining release, is probably a fraction of that, globally, of routine air
travel or the reluctant daily commute.
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| 1939 Ford Pickup |
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| Two Willys Hoods With Air Intakes |
Watching a
seemingly endless procession of vehicles, each running in a straight line for a
few seconds, might sound like it would quickly lose its novelty, but I found it
enduringly entertaining and strangely hypnotic.
Without a long lens, and with many vehicles achieving speeds nearing 200
mph, I found it hard to capture the action very well in my photos, but luckily,
there are already several YouTube videos giving a better impression of the specific
event.
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| 1959 Cadilliac Eldorado Tail Fins |
What really
cheered me most about the day was probably the laid-back, communal atmosphere
of the whole event. It was pleasingly
possible to explore the pit area and examine at close quarters the very
vehicles that had been breathing fire and making the earth shake just minutes
earlier. There’s something thrilling
about stepping to one side to allow a crackling, polychromatic monster, capable
of releasing horsepower in the thousands, to casually trundle past.
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| 1956 Chevrolet Bel Air, Rat Gasser Dragster |
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| 1932 Ford Model B Roadster |
A grounded blue-collar
vibe prevailed, with none of the exclusivity and restricted access one would
expect at many sporting events. The small encampments around each vehicle were
as much relaxed family gathering as intense racing team. The cars often undergo extensive mechanical
re-fettling between runs, but as many people were simply hanging out and amiably
shooting the breeze, as wielding spanners. I often enjoy witnessing the tribal rituals of
a particular subculture and, on limited acquaintance; I’d say the Nostalgia
Drag Racing fraternity resembles a cheery, generous-spirited constituency. Certainly, I was struck by the contrast
between their down to earth demeanour, and the power-worship and
potentially life-threatening feats being performed just metres away.
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| 'Gas Attack', Ford Anglia Dragster |
My few hours at
the Drags were a world away from my regular beat of galleries and solitary
artistic activity, and all the more refreshing for that. In reality, of course, the kitsch tropes and
Rock ‘n’ Roll aspects of Hot Rod culture have intrigued plenty of Pop and
post-Pop artists over the years. I’m
left with memories of painted flames, burning rubber, (and a distinct ringing
in the ears); but also with thoughts of Richard Prince’s found Muscle Car body
sculptures, the Pop Paintings of Peter Phillips and the auto-fetishistic
Photorealism of Peter Maier. Mostly
though, I’m left with the pleasure of having witnessed something taken to
excess for the sheer fun of it.
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Richard Prince, 'Second Place (Oak Hill, Preston Hollow, Canal Zone,
Haight-Ashbury)', GRP, Body Filler, Acrylic, Plywood, 2003-04 |
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| Peter Phillips, 'Art-O-Matic Cudacutie', Oil On Canvas, 1972 |
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| Peter Maier, 'Jaws', DuPont Cromax AT On Aluminium, 2009-10 |
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